Darkness - Short fantasy story (Part 5)
For a few days I was again on the verge of sleep and wakefulness. Madness And Awareness. And then suddenly I was overwhelmed by memories. They continued to line up one after the other, as if they were melting into each other.
The days passed somehow simply and quickly. The caravan stayed in the same place where we originally stopped. I was feeling better and I was constantly spending time with the priest. It's weird, at the time, I didn't even know if he was actually a priest. They were a strange variety, at least that's what people said about them, and they very rarely went outside their temples. There weren't even many, just a few. But I just had such an impression of him, and the robes he wore also visited the priests. I spent my days mostly dealing with horses, and long walks in the woods where he collected plants that he cultivated and made balms after dinner. I didn't even feel the wounds on my face anymore, but the silver glow of the scars will forever remain to remind me of the chaos I survived by sheer luck but also by the good will of these people.
We didn't talk much about what happened to me, only sometimes the priest would ask me something and then mysteriously shut up regardless of my answer. I still didn’t think it was the right time to ask my questions. The signs I saw around me were enough. The women were kind and would often invite me to lunch or dinner with their families, and their husbands were always happy to listen to the stories of the caravan guard that I used to be. Kids would always play and run around my legs. The priest was the embodiment of goodness. I could never notice even a hint of hostility in his gestures or gaze.
My days passed calmly and soon the winds from the north became more frequent, so the priest and the others decided it was time to move. It took us two days to put the horses back in and pack all the other things to move on. According to our position, I think we can find ourselves in the northwestern slopes of the Empire. They have always been a meeting place for nomadic people and those who had nowhere else to go. Wandering through these expanses, they considered it their home. We headed for a low mountain range called the Dollar, which is interwoven with hundreds of caves of all shapes and sizes, and there they thought they would find shelter from the rainy season that would inevitably follow soon.
And then, when the wheelbarrow started, something in me said that I would get answers there, in that next place. Even some I don't want.
